


Hunting

by thewitch0fthewilds (gossamerstarsxx)



Series: Not With Haste [6]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angry Lavellan, Animal Death, Awkward Cullen, Blood and Violence, Dalish Issues, F/M, Haven (Dragon Age), Inquisitor Being an Asshole, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 20:12:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10045967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gossamerstarsxx/pseuds/thewitch0fthewilds
Summary: The closer it comes the deeper they'll pierce,she thinks.I may live.She reaches back for an arrow and her fingers close on air.Or I may not.





	

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings** : Blood and violence; animal death; discussion of prejudice against elves.
> 
>  **Notes** : This has been sitting around in my docs for almost two years. Figured I might as well get it posted.

She does not look where she is putting her feet, does not realize that the tree she has chosen to perch in is mostly dead, not just dormant from the frigid Haven weather. She is more worried about the shot. Bows are not her weapon of choice, but she cannot bring down a druffalo with daggers and none of the damn shem hunters will venture out this far. Their fear of demons and the Breach keeps them close to Haven, and as a result game is growing more and more scarce at the same time that more and more refugees are making their way _into_ Haven. They are hungry and cold; worst of all, many have little tiny ones that are also hungry and cold, and though the grown shems look at her askance, seeing only the pointed ears and _vallas’lin_ , the youngest ones have learned little of such prejudice.

These shems are not her clan. She tells herself that daily.

_They are not my clan. I owe them nothing._

But the shems did not ask for the hole in the sky, did not ask for war to tear apart their homes. She will not let them suffer, especially not the little ones, the ones who are still young enough not to wrinkle their noses at her, the ones who do not see the _vallas’lin_ and pointed ears before they see anything else.

And all right, fine. Maybe she was mistaken for a servant again. Maybe she was called knife-ear again. Maybe she misses the woods, and the wilderness, and maybe most of all she misses when her job was something so simple as hunting, but none of that excuses her carelessness. The branch snaps under the pressure of her foot just as she fires the shot. The arrow goes high, arcing into the druffalo's ear instead of its throat, and it begins to stomp and snort as Aislin tumbles to the ground.

She lands wrong, her ankle rolling to the side as it slips off the edge of a root that had been obscured by snow. A bolt of pain shoots through her ankle and up into her leg and she falls, crying out as she scrambles to right herself.

The ground trembles. Aislin looks up. She throws herself to the side a fraction too slowly. Her vision whites out as pain explodes against her ear and skull, and for a long, frightening moment she is both blind and deaf.

She gathers herself as quickly as she can, her vision swimming back into focus and revealing the impossibly bright drops of blood staining the snow where she had lain.

Ignoring it, and ignoring the sickening way the world seems to be moving beneath her, Aislin clutches her bow and rises unsteadily to her feet, the pain in her ankle barely registering in her shaken mind.

Disoriented, she fires another shot at the druffalo, realizing a half second too late that she has missed...and missed badly. Her arrow flies wide of the druffalo, past it, and nicks the flank of another hunter, one that Aislin had not thought to find awake in such cold weather.

The bear is huge, half again the size of the druffalo, and as it rears up on its thick hind legs it lets out a roar that echoes around the hills.

Aislin cannot help but smile. Were she not in so much pain, she might laugh.

She braces her back against the tree, drops her bow, and draws her daggers, waiting, smiling.

 _Fine,_ she thinks, _Fine, I will die. Herald of Andraste, killed by a bear. Fine. Not as if I believe in Andraste anyway. At least if I die they will finally find someone who knows how to lead to take my place._

A moment later a new sound begins to reverberate off the surrounding hills, one that gives both the angry druffalo and the advancing bear pause. It is a booming, bellowing voice, coming from somewhere further behind her, inarticulate but so loud that the sound echoes as easily as the bear’s roar. From the corner of her blurry vision she sees the druffalo turn, its attention deflected, but she dares not take her eyes off the bear.

The voice comes again, closer, this time accompanied by the familiar clink of plate and mail. She flinches as the bull charges past her. Its tail whips her ribs and she throws herself to the side again, away from the tree, dropping one of her daggers in order to snatch her bow back. She tries to rise to her feet and ready herself, but this time her ankle will not hold her. Aislin sinks back to the snow with a cry and a curse, looking up toward the sounds of stomping and snarling.

What she sees leaves her speechless, frozen in awe and fear.

The Commander stands in front of the huge druffalo, his longsword dripping blood and held ready. His shield lies nearby, the Templar logo deeply dented. The druffalo rests on its knees. The snow around its body is a deep red.

The bear closes in, its great head held low. Steam curls from its maw as it roars in the cold air.

Cullen's gaze is fixed, intense. The beast begins to charge.

Cullen flees its swiping paw. He bends to snatch up his shield as he moves to put the dying druffalo between them, but the bear is not interested in the fresh kill. It has decided that Cullen is the threat, and it begins to lumber over the still-warm body of the druffalo, rumbling at Cullen from deep within its chest.

Cullen backs away and to the side. The creature is forced to circle around awkwardly over the dead druffalo to get Cullen back in its sights.

Its massive paw slips on the druffalo’s back. Cullen lunges forward and lands a quick, deep blow against the bear’s shoulder. It rears and roars in pain and Cullen backs away, shield held high.

Aislin is horrified at the size of the beast. The Commander is not by any means a small man, standing nearly a foot and a half higher than she herself, but…

The bear draws up to its full height. Cullen is dwarfed.

The bear comes down running. Cullen barely manages to escape being headbutted to the ground; a split second later he parries away the creature’s huge, swiping paws, one after the other.

 _He cannot do this alone,_ Aislin thinks, _Not if he wants to live._

The bear is too quick and too wild. Cullen may be accustomed to battling all manner of dangerous creatures, both human and otherwise, but Aislin has her doubts as to his experience with dangerous _wildlife._

She tries to stand, tries to force her ankle to hold her weight, but the pain radiates down to her bones; it will not hold her, no matter how hard she bites her lip or how fiercely she curses.

She takes a knee instead. It still hurts, but the pain is less. She shifts her weight to the knee, pulls an arrow from the quiver at her back and nocks it all within the space of a breath, but she holds off on releasing, hoping Cullen’s careful circling will bring a better shot.

He lands another blow, deflecting yet another swipe of the creature’s paw with his sword and crippling it badly in the process.

The beast becomes enraged.

It rears up on its back legs again, slavering jowls slinging thick ropes of saliva as it roars loud enough to make the tree branches tremble.

Aislin fights off a wave of dizziness as she aims for the side of the monster’s throat.

Her aim is off, but not by much. The arrow lodges itself deeply into the bear’s injured shoulder. Aislin nocks another arrow. As the beast turns its great head toward this new threat, Cullen rushes forward, sinking his sword deep between the bruin’s ribs and retreating so quickly that even Aislin, foggy as her head is becoming, must admire it.

The bear snarls and actually stumbles backward. Aislin sinks her teeth into her lip as deeply as she dares; the bright pain clears her head the way a flash of lightning clears the night sky. She takes aim at the throat again and lets fly, blood running down her chin, and this time she does not miss.

The bear falters again. Cullen advances with another deep upward thrust of his blade into the bear’s chest, but this time he is not quick enough.

The bear snarls, furious and confused. It turns on Cullen with both paws wide, intent upon grabbing him in a deadly hug.

Cullen deflects one sweeping claw with his sword. The other catches him on the shoulder. He is driven to a knee. He brings up his shield to block the next blow but the bear is too quick -

_If he can’t get back up…_

A wave of dizziness threatens to unbalance her. This time Aislin bites into her tongue as she nocks another arrow. She makes no attempt at aiming anywhere but the broad target the bear presents.

Her arrow sticks in its side. The next one hits it in the flank. The one following glances off its skull and the next few pierce its side and flank again.

The bear - furious, confused, and likely in agony - whirls away from Cullen with a vicious roar. It begins advancing on Aislin instead, lumbering toward her as if it senses that she cannot not escape.

Aislin hears Cullen bellowing, though whether at her or the bear she cannot tell; the sound seems to be coming from a great distance. Blood floods her mouth as she fights off unconsciousness with her teeth in her tongue, still raining arrows into the bear’s hide.

 _The closer it comes the deeper they'll pierce,_ she thinks. _I may live._

She reaches back for an arrow and her fingers close on air.

_Or I may not._

She flings down the bow and reaches to pick up her daggers where they lay in the snow. The world spins and tilts. Aislin falls to the side, mouth and throat choked with nauseating copper, nose filled with the reek of bear, and though she closes her hands around her daggers and rolls onto her back, the world is growing weirdly dim around the edges.

Rather than the triumphant roar that she had expected to be the last thing she ever heard, she hears instead a panicked, frightened snarl, accompanied by a fearsome human bellowing and the _clink_ of mail.

She turns her head, astonished.

Cullen stands at the back of the beast, one gauntleted hand buried deep into the fur of its great neck. With the other he wrenches his massive sword from the juncture of the beast’s neck and shoulders. When the sword is free he drives it immediately it into the wide throat; with a fearsome cry, he slashes it through.

Blood spurts across the snow. Cullen backs away, watching the beast carefully.

The bear can make no sound. Cullen has torn through the greater part of its throat, vocal chords included; it can only gurgle and huff. It tries to rear back again but falls forward almost immediately, its massive legs refusing to hold it up as more and more blood begins to run into the snow, staining, steaming, _stinking._

The stench is thick in the sharp, cold air, and Aislin is sick with it. The blood of the bear is wild and hot and overwhelming and her own trickles in sticky rivulets behind her ear, running down the side of her throat and down her chin, soaking into her coat; her mouth filmy with it, and it is only with a concentrated effort that she is able to avoid vomiting.

She fights to sit up though the motion makes her head throb and her vision blur. Cullen doubles, then trebles in front of her. Aislin reels forward into the snow, catching herself with a forearm at the last moment.

Then Cullen is kneeling in front of her, his big hands grasping her shoulders as he guides her back upright. He is talking, asking her questions, but he is talking too fast and Aislin cannot follow. He smells of leather and there is elfroot on his breath but he smells of blood too, it soaks the front of his tunic -

_Blood!_

She reaches out for him, forgetting both herself and Cullen’s shem manners in her panic. She splays her hands over his stomach, runs them up across his chest, searching desperately for a wound, certain that he was clawed at some point when she had not been clear headed, but beneath her trembling fingers there is only the cloth of his surcoat and the hard, unforgiving plate of his cuirass.

The sight of her hands against Cullen’s broad chest brings her up short. She draws back with an abrupt movement that makes her aching head begin to swim again.

" _Era seranna ma,"_ she mutters, then squeezes her eyes shut in frustration with herself at Cullen's blank confusion. She is not thinking straight.

"I meant...I mean, excuse me, Commander," she corrects herself. "I thought you had been injured, the blood...I was...making sure."

"N-no, I'm..." Cullen's cheeks are red, whether from cold or exertion she does not know. "No, I am fine, my lady, but it appears that you are not. You're bleeding, and I saw you favoring your ankle as you faced the bear."

Aislin opens her mouth to speak, but Cullen's face grows dark, his brows drawing together above his nose in a unnerving frown as his hands tighten on her shoulders.

"Are you _mad_ , my lady?!” he asks, voice low and fierce. “That creature would have crushed you - _killed_ you - you were going to face it down with a pair of _daggers!_ And no way to run!"

The blood in her mouth...Aislin struggles to swallow past the thick, rusty taste.

 _Dread Wolf take me, I am a hunter and a woman besides!_ She grits her teeth, furious with herself. _Blood is blood, why does it turn my stomach so?_

"What were you _thinking?"_  Cullen shakes her a little, his voice tight with frustration.

Aislin scowls, but it is halfhearted. He is far from rough and the only reason she is still upright is because he is holding her there.

"If you must know, I was thinking that I was...that I was going to die," she answers, closing her eyes against the way the world is beginning to spin. "I preferred to die fighting."

_Creators, don't let me get sick in front of a shem._

She swallows with difficulty and sways slightly on her knees; Cullen steadies her, then catches her chin as she winces.

"My lady? We need to get you back to Haven. You're pale as ash."

Aislin wrinkles her nose and pushes his hand away.

"I'm fine," she mutters. "I'll get over it."

She opens her eyes and tries to rise to a hobbling position, but sways again as her vision begins to swim. The pain in her head is sickening, radiating outward from a place behind her right ear. She tries to take a step but her ankle, forgotten in its numbness, refuses to hold the slightest weight and she goes down again. This time Cullen catches her, lowering her gently back to the ground.

"My lady, you've lost a lot of blood," he says, parting her hair gently at the sight of the wound in order to get a better look. He presses careful fingertips along the ragged edges of the gash and Aislin flinches away, cursing him in slurred Elvhen.

Cullen withdraws his hands as if burned. "Apologies, my lady," he mumbles. "I don’t think your skull is fractured. But the wound is deep, and your ear has been split nearly in half. You've bled so much it's no wonder you feel ill. I must get you back to Haven."

"Fine." The world has begun to look ashen and grey, save for the gold of the sun in Cullen's hair. She closes her eyes, unwilling to think about that, about the way his hair looks in the sun, and for awhile she does not open them.

* * *

 Aislin comes to a while later, lightheaded and confused but far less sick. The left side of her head is unpleasantly warm, the rest of her pleasantly so. She seems to be moving at an odd pace but when she tries to open her eyes the world lurches drunkenly. She can make out a ring of familiar fur around her face. When she looks up, the sunlight travels through her eyes and into her brain like a bolt of lightning. She flinches away, tucking her head close to warm leather; when she squints up again, the familiar glint of sun in Cullen's pale hair is far more gentle.

He glances down at her, the scarred side of his mouth quirking upward when he catches her open eyes.

"We're nearly there, my lady," he says, his voice soft. "Try to stay conscious, if you can. I tried to wake you before but you were having none of it. Still, sleeping after a head injury can be dangerous."

"I know," Aislin mutters, and she does, really she does, but she is so warm and the world is so painfully bright.

"Tell me where you're from, my lady," Cullen says. "The Free Marches, am I correct?"

"Yes." Aislin's eyes close. She cannot help it.

"I know little of the Dalish," Cullen says. "Tell me what you did with them, my lady. What were your days like?"

"Long," Aislin replies. "We woke with dawn. I was a hunter...feeding the clan was...hunter's responsibility. Harder in the cold. People died in the winter...didn't want them to die in Haven."

"Is that why you were out so far?" Cullen asks. "You were hunting for...Haven?"

"Not my clan." She scowls. "Shems...not my clan. But they didn't ask for..."

_Fenedhis, I am so sleepy…_

"What did they not ask for, my lady?" Cullen prompts. He shakes her, gently.

"Any of it." He is trying to keep her talking, trying to keep her conscious, and she tries to keep that in mind, tries to resist the urge ignore him or give sharp, one-word answers.

"The sky. The demons. The war. They did not ask for it," she goes on. "And...they keep coming. Shem hunters...refuse to go out far enough. Scared. Over hunted game, rams, the animals learned to stay away, people are going to freeze and starve, and that was...that was my responsibility."

"In your clan, you mean? To keep them warm and fed?" Cullen asks.

"Yes." She shifts a little. Her left ankle is numb again.

"I'll send a party to collect the druffalo when we return," Cullen says. "Along with my cuirass and shield, actually, I left them to carry you back. And I'll have a talk with the hunters about their fears. Perhaps if I sent a Templar with each party, they'll feel better about widening the hunting grounds. We have a few, though not many. Would that help, my lady?"

"Probably." Aislin blinks her eyes open again. The sun has slipped behind a screen of cloud and the light is less abrasive; she can force herself to keep her eyes open without feeling lightheaded.

"May I ask why you went out alone to hunt something as large as a druffalo?" Cullen asks. "Why not tell Cassandra or Josie about your fears for the refugees and your problem with the hunters? Or Leliana, or myself?"

Aislin scowls again, suddenly wishing he would put her down, let her limp or even crawl back to Haven on her own. She falls obstinately silent.

"My lady?" He looks down at her, and she glares back up at him; to her fury, he begins to smile.

"You had a group of hunters in your clan, did you not?"

She nods.

"As I thought," Cullen says. "You did not work alone to provide for your clan. You need not work alone here, either."

Cullen means well, but Aislin bristles at his words regardless. She thinks of the shem officer in Haven just that morning, the one who had beckoned her toward him, calling her _knife-ear_ and telling her to gather firewood. Just how many times she has been called that since the Fade spit her out? How can she convey to Cullen all the ugliness she has overheard about herself throughout Haven, ugliness that is hers hers by virtue of her pointed ears and tattooed face, neither of which she could ever hide even if she wanted to?

Her jaw clenches tight and her injured skull begins to throb in protest. She recalls all the times she has asked a soldier to do something and gotten nothing but sarcasm and disobedience in response until Cassandra stepped in, and she remembers the worst ones, the ones who will accost her not only for daring to be Elvhen but for being a woman as well, and by the _Creators_ Cullen has no idea just how alone she really is and it makes her furious.

"Tell me, Commander," she says, struggling to rein in the harshness of her voice, to make it seem as if she is asking him a genuine question rather than trying to claw at him with her sarcasm. "Tell me that you would trust a group of people to do as you said, to respect and obey you, when some of those same people and thousands more like them whisper slurs behind your back. Tell me you would trust your men if they never recognized you as their Commander, never showed you common decency let alone respect, because all Templars are savages, thieves, no better than animals."

Cullen looks down at her and his smile gone. He is stricken, sheepish, and his eyes linger on her ears, on each area of her face where her _vallas’lin_ are tattooed.

"N-not all of us..."

Aislin's temper flares. She cuts him off, no longer troubling to keep the anger out of her voice.

"Don’t you dare," she hisses, "Don't you dare tell me 'not all humans' because it is more than enough of the humans, and don't you dare tell me _you_ are not like that. All humans are, it is only a matter of to what extent. Yes, you are better than some I know, but do not defend yourself to me as if you deserve praise for treating me as the equal I am instead of a second class servant!"

Aislin closes her eyes again, trying to regain her composure. Her heart races; blood pounds against her wounded skull in deep, dull hammer strokes, and with the ache comes the dizziness and nausea. She prepares to endure the rest of the journey in silence, sure that Cullen will dismiss her, think she is overreacting, but -

"You are right," Cullen says, and the sincerity in his voice is so genuine that Aislin cannot hide her own surprise. She opens her eyes again, peering up at him with one brow raised.

“Aislin, I...I am sorry. Truly,” he says, “I...suffice to say I have been guilty of this before. You are right. I am no elf, and I don’t understand what this has been like for you, didn’t even stop to consider it. I will not be so careless again. I _did_ mean what I said, however: I am here. I am at your service, my lady, and you shall have whatever assistance I can provide in order to accomplish your goals. You have only to ask.”

_He called me Aislin._

Unsure of what else to say and not trusting herself to speak in the first place, Aislin nods. Cullen bows his head to her in response, then looks away across the snow.

“The gates are just ahead,” he says quietly. “Let’s get you to a healer.”

“The bear,” she says suddenly. “The bear - I want it.”

Cullen nods, though his expression is somewhat puzzled. “As you wish, my lady.”

He calls out to the gate guards a moment later, but she is getting drowsy again; soon someone pulls Cullen’s cloak from her shoulders and she immediately begins to shiver. She opens her eyes just long enough to see him glance back at her before he steps out the door, leaving her to Adan and a handful of mages.

It occurs to her that she had never asked why he was there, wandering so far out in the snow, but before she can think about it too much Adan begins stitching her ear back together.


End file.
